The Way The World Ends

I was watching a documentary in Earth Science about how important the oceans are to earth, and found out something disturbing about global warming. I have decided to post this as an imformative article.

Submitted:Dec 19, 2009
Reads: 180
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Likes: 3

The Way the World
Ends

An Article by S.R.
Miller

"So this is the way the world
ends; not with a bang, but a whimper."

-T.S. Elliot

I've been very angry about this global warming thing for quite
awhile, but I recently found a few facts about it that I hadn't
heard before, and they scared me.

Most people know that the ice caps are melting. Some have even
heard this would trigger an ice age. But I have found an even
bleaker, far more scary outcome that is not as well broadcast, or
known. I hope, that by publishing this article, I can shed some
light on just how serious this climate change shit is, and maybe
scare a few people into action against air pollution.

A Giant Blue
Thermostat

To explain how this works, i need to explain some earth science.
Chiefly about the oceans. The oceans are the world's thermostat.
They keep Hawaii warm and europe from being a frozen wasteland.
They control weather patterns, and almost every species on earth
depends on them, directly or indirectly, for survival. Including
humans.

How this works is simple. Have you ever poured water on something
to thaw it? It works like that, but on a much larger scale. The
currents in the ocean carry warm water from the equator up the
coast of Africa and all the way to europe, and then around to
Maine and northern USA, keeping it from being a frozen wasteland
like northern Canada. Currents all over the world keep hot places
hot and cold places cold. It's Because of the oceans many islands
are the tropical paradises they are.

To phrase it for idiots, the currents are important.

There are two kinds of currents; surface currents, which are
created by the wind and the turning of the earth, and deep
currents, which are created by water of diferent densities and
salinities (saltiness) moving around. Basically, something that
is denser than another will sink, something less dense will
float. Salinity is similar. Some parts of the ocean are saltier
than others. Deep currents are caused by cold polar water moving
(because of density/salinity) across the globe, slowly rising as
they get warmer (therefor less dense) and then sinking down to
the bottom again when they reach the other pole. These deep
currents keep the ocean mobile, like stirring a pot of water, or
the flow of rivers into lakes.

Another thing that currents do is feed us. It's a food-chain. The
plankton feed the bigger plankton, which feed the shrimp, which
feed the fish and so on. The plankton get nutrients from the sun,
but also a process called upwelling. Upwelling is when the warm
top water is pulled away from shore and the cold, nutreint rich
deep water rises up and fills it's place. The nutrients in the
deep water come from the carcasses of marine animals floating to
the bottom of the ocean and breaking down. So the currents bring
the cold water, which feed the plankton, which feed the fish,
which feed us.

So what happens when those currents stop?

When the Currents
Stop

Have you ever seen a pond with really gross, bad-smelling water?
The kind that just sits there without having any fresh water
added by river or rainfall? The water is probably stagnant.

Something similar will happen to the ocean if the poles melt.
Once the poles melt the water won't be cold enough for the deep
currents to curculate, like ice cubes melting in a glass. Once
that happens, the water stops moving. The surface currents will
still go on, powered by wind and not denstiy, but deep currents
like the East Australian (You know, from the movie Finding Nemo)
will stop. And this is one of the scenario's that will play out.

Once the water stops curculating, europe and northern USA are
going to get a lot colder. But that's barley a footnote. here's
the scary part.

When the plankton die from lack of nutreints from upwelling, the
fish, like salmon and tuna, will go too, colapsing the fishing
industry. And that will be all for a little while.

but then, the oceans will get stagnant.

The first to go will be the creatures sensitive to changes in
enviroment, like the jellyfish, and the coral. Those will be the
first causualties.

Pink
Poison

After that, the stagnant water will turn poisonous.

The accumlalation of dead creatures will be eaten by bacteria,
which after a long time, produce a poisonous pink gas. And as
that poisonous gas builds up, it eventually reaches the surface,
and dissipates into the air, effectivly gasing the planet over
time. Killing everybody.

How do we know this will happen? Because it's happened before; a
long time ago, before the dinosaurs. The same thing happened,
triggeringa mass extinction like the world has never seen since.
This extinction killed90% OF ALL SPECIES ON
EARTH.

It works the same with a bottle of wine. The yeast breaks down
the sugar and produces alcohol. But eventually the yeast run out
of food, and start breaking down the alcohol turning it into
vinagar, eventually killing them. Right now, we are like the
yeast, taking away the oxygen and producing the carbon dioxide,
thus melting the poles and making the ocean stagnant, digging our
own graves.

And even if humanity is not one of these ninety percent, what
about the other species? Cows, pigs, chickens, fish, deer,
vegtables and fruits? none of them are praticular hardy when it
comes to poisons. Neither are we, actually. Even if we survive
the gasing of earth, will we survive the rebound? Will we hunt
rats and cockroaches? Gather algae and fungus to eat? Or will we
simply fade from existence, the masters of earth killed by
something so small, as a tiny bacteria?

A Light in the
Darkness

The future is grim, the way it's headed. But doesn't need to be.
The furture is written in water, not stone, and even the smallest
things create big ripples. It's not too late to change, to build
a better future for our descendants. Knowlege is power.

So email this article to everyone you know, inform people about
this and we can DO something!! WE are powerful, not our leaders
or governments! They our powerful because we let them be,
conviced as they want us to be that one person cannot change
anything! But that is as far from the truth as can be! ONE person
can do something. And for every one person who has an ally, we
can change the world if we can only THINK we are powerful! One
person can change little more than a single city, or a single
law, but one thousand ones can change the world! So help change
it, you are one of those ones!